Well, we both had a couple of challenge ridden days of travel.
Kevin left Portland at 8:30 for Las Vegas, then to Philadelphia and then on to London. He got lucky from Las Vegas to Philadelphia. "From Vegas to Philadelphia I was in line to try to volunteer for the exit row (I was in a middle seat). The person behind me told me that they had just paged me because someone in first class wanted to trade seats with me. WOW. 5 minutes later I was sipping a bloody mary." He almost didn't make the flight the connection in Philadelphia and then wasn't able to sleep on the plane. He made it to London around 9:30. Turns out US Airways lost his bag (yes his backpack with everything in it). We were supposed to meet at Westminster Abbey, so he headed downtown. He was able to see the church and the side entrance to Buckingham Palace.
My flight from Seattle to London was delayed so I didn't get in to London until 12:30. I was able to get about 5 hours of sleep on the plane. Turns out, British Airways lost my bag too. (Yes, my backpack with everything in it). At this point, it is too late to meet Kevin at Westminster Abbey, so he headed to Paddington Station to meet me there.
We arranged for the airlines to send our bags to our hostel in Geneva and then headed to Kings Cross Station to catch the train to Luton airport for our flight to Geneva. We stopped for a pint outside the train station (it was the least I could do for my brief visit to London). Hopefully I will be able to see a little more of it at the end of our trip.
The train to Luton was only supposed to take 25 minutes, it was more like an hour. Once there we got to go to the front of the line to check in (it was a fast check in since we didin't have any lugguage -- Kevin had his coat, I had a little "ditty" bag with my credit cards, passport and blackberry). Security was a nightmare, I have never see a line so long...oh yea, we checked in at 5:55 and our plane was supposed to start boarding at 5:55. Needless to say, after we made it through secuirty it was 6:15 and our plane was delayed. We finally got on the plane and headed to Geneva. Easyjet is definately a no-nonsense airline, I think it is even more sparse then Southwest. Once in Geneva we caught a cab to the hostel (we couldn't get any of our credit cards to work at the trainstop at the airport). We showered and washed our clothes in the sink and then crashed (at 1 am).
Monday morning we slept in and then headed to the train station to buy our tickets for Chamonix on Tuesday. We wondered around a little, bought some pjs for me, shorts & crocs for Kevin. Lunch was a beer and a sandwich. It is really warm here so at 2:30 we headed for the hostel for a shower and a nap...after we checked on our flights.
Kevin called on his bag, it doesn't look promising that it will make it to Geneva before we leave tomorrow at 9 for Chamonix. He then called on mine. We are both in some sort of baggage twilight zone, neither airline knows where either bag is and we are supposed to call back in 24 hours -- at which point we will be in Chamonix. If they don't make it here, our next option for them is to have them delivered to our hotel in Argentiere. Its a good thing it is a easy 2 hour "valley walk" from Chamonix to Argentiere.
Now for another shower, a nap and maybe a cheap little backpack purchase (to carry what little belongings we have from Chamonix to Argentiere).
After the shower and a nap we headed back out for dinner and more sights.
There isn't much to see in Geneva, there seems to be some sort of festival going on so we walked through that and then found a bar that was serving pizza. After dinner we walked up the hill to Notre Dame and then back towards the hostel. Along the way we each had an ice cream cone. We got back to our hotel around 10pm. We laid around pondering what to do about the gear we would need to do this trip. The crappy thing about losing the bags is that we packed really light so we only brought what we would need, and we lost all of it. I don't even have a coat, socks or my asthma medicine.
We finally fell a sleep around 10:30 and then both woke up at 11:30. (you have to love jet lag). We laid awake until 3 and then were able to go back to sleep for until 6ish.
No comments:
Post a Comment